I start my work at the smithy earlier than usual. Getting there before it's time for my night shift I'm free to work at my own pace. I forge a few small metal sheets. I try to inscribe then with the knife but I'm not successful. The grooves are too shallow. I take a small hammer and a chisel. I look it over with my ever-increasing perception. It looks to be another Mithril tool. Only the very tip, but it should cut into the metal with no problem.

I carefully go over a simple design and by the end, it barely works.

Before I continue the two other people leave and I'm now in charge of the forge. I direct everyone to try making their own items. They have to learn sometime, am I right? I keep one eye on their work while I engrave. I'm interrupted every few minutes having to help them or give instructions about what to do next. I don't let that steer me away from my goal.

By my eighth design, I’m starting to get somewhere. All of them are as simple as I can make them. The inscribed plates take in a stream of mana and small flame forms. I optimize it to a candle sized flame. As I put in mana the plate heats up. After a few tries, I notice that the longer the mana has to travel in the plate, the more heat is generated and the less efficient the design is.

I suppose steel is not the best material to work with mana. After the first few plates, I start to send a little mana with every hammer strike through the chisel. The results are significant. I find that the mana can flow easier in the channels I delineate. It reduces the heating and the waste of mana.

As I’m inscribing one of the plates I feel the strong tug again. I stop and look over my messages.

You have upgraded your skill from Runic Language (Unique) to Runic Language (Unique): This skill helps your efforts to write in the runic language.

I laugh at the name not changing. Thinking it over I find it is not so strange. I read each person's system is unique. Someone with a single skill might go years or decades without having a name change. They might even never change names. Imagine a skill simply called skill.

Chuckling at my own wandering thoughts I end the exercise. I ended up having learned a lot. The mana usage seems dependent on the materials and skill of the inscriber.

A few of the others in the forge input their mana on the plates I make. I notice the mana efficiency is exactly the same for everyone. It is the same as the air blower for the forge. We all organize the smithy and cool down the forge.

As the morning comes around I can get rid of the ash.

I end up sleeping for an hour right here in the forge. Setting up the forge is something I'm long used to do. Not even two weeks here and it seems this has been half my life. I start my day longing Pando. I feel a piece of him in my eye and it soothes me. It has been years since I spent so long away from him.

Even if I had to do something away from Pando for a while, I knew it would just be a question of traveling a couple hours. Worst case scenario, if I was on the other side of the world, it would only take me a day to make the trip back. In the grand scheme of things even when I lived with my parents, we were neighbors.

Now, I have no idea how long I will stay here. As much as it pains me, I will not be coming back early. I will try to remain here as long as I can. Not only can I help create a small piece of the infrastructure that we will need for earth's success, but I can also level my skills and myself much faster here. I might come back a month or two early but not more than that. In the last month or two leaving the money to people here, so they can stay longer, is a viable strategy. But for now, I will simply strive to do my best. To grow in strength, knowledge, and wisdom as much as I possibly can. I will come back to earth with actual means to help everyone survive the coming catastrophe.

I go to the morning meeting, but Charlie only says that the other village's team has left. I also find that two people unlocked the runic language skill. He talks a bit about that but I already know all about it. Nothing else piques my interest.

Work goes smoothly until someone shows up. I think it is just another brief interruption but I find that to not be the case. The most monument of things happens.

"So after I got the skill, I was thinking and I did this." He shows me a simple diagram. Four fire runes with symmetrical connectors. "I run mana trough this and it created fire mana. That's what I have been calling the mana from burned wood."

I feel a tingling in my whole body, so excited I was. This would change everything. One or two people could supply the firewood for the entire village. Mr. Blackwood is to the side observing this carefully. This time he is not even pissed at the interruption.

I think it over and draw the diagram in mana. I run my mana through it and I find that I can recover 80% as fire mana. Achieving an efficiency of 80% is a huge step. That meant we could accelerate a few things. I say to him to go to the guild and ask for the people in charge of the mining efforts. The message was: “It’s time to go full throttle.”

I go the rest of the day thinking about the fire runes. Occasionally I sketch something quickly. I even manage to get 3 levels in Runic Language. As the day is almost ending, a messenger tells me to go talk with the guilds spokesperson as soon as I can. So I quickly finish everything up and head to meeting him without working on the forge at all.

I get to the guildhall and there is a small crowd there. Charlie sees me after a minute and we head for his office. With no fanfare, he speaks.

"Nash, we are going to be facing another attack from monsters. We have seen the signs and there were a couple of warnings from the people in the village."

I feel my heart rate increase at the news. What, when, how. Calming myself down I simply ask. "How did you guys found out?"

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"The tanner and blacksmith have been coordinating efforts to pass as much information along as they can. The blacksmith focused more on the crafting aspect, but the tanner is telling us a little about the mechanics of monsters attacks."

“My reports have been used to figure this out?”

“Not exactly. They helped us put the pieces together, but following them both, after they leave work we learned a few things. They share everything we told them and they settle on what to share with us."

“What exactly do you want me to do about it.”

"A few things are still in the air, but the attack should happen in a few days. It will involve more than one monster type and levels should range in the 5 to 20 range. One of our scouts bought a book about the mobs and it has been providing valuable information. We managed to identify their tracks and what level they should be. For now, all we want you to do is to do your best at the smithy."

“Ok. I send word to the miners to go full steam on preparing to make steel.”

“I heard about that, it should alleviate some of our budget concerns.”

"Not only that, while making proper items is good and all, with cheap metal we could make a great many things that don't need stats or any system recognition."

Charlie nods and complements my line of thought: "Even stuff that may benefit from stats would still be useable without."

"A single person could do a thousand arrowheads a day if they cast the metal, instead of pounding it into shape. You just need to sharpen a little bit, after removing from the mold." I pause and curious I ask: "What do you know about the attack are we expecting?"

“It will probably be a single wave. One or two hundred mobs in the 5-20 level range. We shouldn't face any flying enemies for a while. One of the big dangers is that they will be organized. The book didn't tell us anything about the monsters itself, just to recognize them and their level range.”

“Why now and should the other villages be concerned?”

"The other villages will be fine. It seems the monsters will focus on the most advanced village. The higher our industry, the more people leaving at night, the less we rely on the village all determine our placement in rankings. The top village gets all the attention in the form of monster attacks."

"Does this affect how hard we are hit?"

"Yes, the attacks vary a lot depending n how much we develop. And as long as we don't fall, the other villages will have little to concern themself with. The good news is that as long as we don't dally, we can always stay ahead of the curve of trials the system sends our way."

“I assume the bad news is the people dying on the road to progress?"

“Yes. We are trying to make sense of it and try to make everything to minimize the chance of each of us dying, but for now, we can only hope to stay ahead of the curve."

"So much for the starting zone being a safe place." Imitating the guard's voice I say: "Oooooh, you will only have monster attacks if you go poking them."

Charlie chuckles and says:

“Yeah, but we kinda are poking at the bear. Considering only one village will be eliminated at a time this way, it is not too outside of what the system allows the council to get away with.”

"The problem is that the people we need most are the first to go. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating to offer up the people with less ambition to the maws of the system. What I'm saying is that the system is taken the people we, as a society, can least afford to lose. The people with drive, the people who organize themselves and work together. Creative people. It's a travesty."

"Yeah, it really is." He takes a breath and ends our conversation with a few parting words: "Let's cut this short. Do what you can in your front. Make as many items as humanly possible. I send a message to everyone from the smithy already; they are probably working there right now. Do keep us apprised of your efforts. We are dedicating more people to the mining team. That is all.”

"Ok. I will still be teaching, but the rest of my time I will be to making what we need.”

After I said my goodbyes, I go straight to my class. Today the class has fewer people. I don't mind that and head straight in.

"So, today's plans have changed. Some of you might know we are kicking things up a notch. I have brought some of that energy to today's class. We will be going through the process of infusing wood. Unlike last time the transformation of mana to fire mana will be different. One of your colleagues discovered a fire conversion rune that is much more efficient than the method we were using.”

Someone interrupts.

“How efficient? 20, 30, 50 percent?”

"It's 80% efficient for me. It should be at least 50% efficient for everyone else.”

I show them the rune and in no time a few people can start conversion. I take the mana, convert it, and infuse it. The class goes by faster than ever and we finish with an enormous pile.

I used most of the mana to infuse today but I also run a few tests on other things. With close to two hundred people in the class, a few people not only get the runic language skill, but they also come up with a scalable variant of the spell.

With this new form, we can simplify it to 3 fire runes for people just getting started. We can also increase for better efficiency, though even I with the highest stats and mana manipulation, could only take it to 6 runes for a modest increase. I keep it short and the class lasts two hours.

Before I head to the smithy I put everything in the kiln to dry. Dmitry really has put effort into making our operation as good as possible. I take my knife and a log. After breaking the log, I quickly test a few things. I have come up with the first steps for a grand idea. I draw conduits for mana all around the wood and in the end, I put a simple flame enchantment.

The inscription will make the smallest flame I can set up. I start inputting mana at the beginning. After about 1 mana inputted, I sense the mana reaches the other side. I put another half-a-point before filling it up completely.

I stop and watch the flame. Like a candle flame almost going out. It is barely a centimeter tall.

Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds, and the flame is gone. No flickering, just gone.

I think it over. This is not quite as good as a mana battery, but it may be good enough. It takes me an hour, but finally, I'm happy with the result.

I look over the kiln. The frame is still inside there. But now we can dry much more with the same amount of firewood. All the clay has helped to insulate and seal the place up.

I slowly send my mana, already tired given the thousands of mana points I used earlier. I have less than 100 mana, but I still manage to fill it. It takes 80 mana units to fill it entirely. With 80 mana it should be able to run for about 20 minutes.

This dehumidifier will help to dry the wood. All it does is circulate air and take the moisture out of the air, but that is still quite significant. It will allow for even faster drying of wood. With the thickness we use, perhaps even a single day to get completely dry wood. I experimented with trying to dry directly. Preliminary experiments shot the idea down, about 50 mana per log would be required.

Using the humidifier, if a couple people gift some o their mana a day, it is already enough to speed up the process. Even if a dozen people showed up it would be less than 1000 mana drying thousands of logs. The kiln ended up full to the top. With this much wood, we could start exporting it. After we have a method to transport all this wood.

In a single day, I used all the wood Dmitry had brought in. That’s kind of impressive. Even with an increased pace, we had more than enough for all the village’s needs for well over a week.

I take a look at my book on the way over to the smithy. I see a little complementary information on a few things I wanted to know about runes.

Reading through it, in the end, I have a big surprise. Finally, there is some information on my soul stat.